Jaded Perspective: Echoes of a Soul
by TheGirlWithFarTooManyIdeas
Summary: AU. Loki's fall of the Bifrost yielded unexpected results. Harry's suicide attempt after his third year didn't cause his death. While Loki navigates the Tri-Wizard Tournament and Harry stumbles across the nine realms struggling to survive, forces on both sides conspire to destroy them and everything they care about. Will Loki's rage deny them both their futures? ON HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

**Echoes of a Soul**

**Wanda: Ah-ha! Finally, I've gotten down the start of a series I've been working on ever since the Avengers movie came out! Geez, that only took forever - what the heck is wrong with me. Anyhow, expect this to update on alternative days with Children of Magic, since my brain at least has a sense of continuity. I do not own Harry Potter or the Avengers.**

**Prologue: Falling**

In one universe, there were two similar souls.

They had never met before. They didn't know each other's names. Never had they passed each other by on the same road in search of life's truths.

They didn't even share a realm – while one lay in the safety of a golden prison in a realm of warriors, wishing that he was of value to his family, another curled up in cupboard jail cell just praying for the next day to come.

But in many ways, they were the same.

Their futures were chosen by cruel old men before they even understood the gravity of their place in life. Terrible truths were kept from them, out of a midguided sense of protectiveness while knives of hatred and exclusion cut away at them.

They were compatible.

Fate has a strange way of thinking – what people thought she had in store was rarely what she truly wanted. Living minds tended to misinterpret her whispers. She and her sister death rarely interacted with the living realms, especially after Death attracted some unwanted attention upon her last visit to the Further Realms.

She had waited in silence while the forces ran their course, but when Loki Odinson threw himself off the bridge into the void, when Harry Potter attempted to hang himself following his third year of Hogwarts upon the Dursleys pushing him too hard, she acted.

There was only so much she could do directly – but in these extreme circumstances she could call upon extreme measures.

Loki's greater, freer magic would be able to break the rope and heal his throat. Harry's raw tenacity would lead him from the Further Realms back to Midgard.

Their lives were similar. Their choices. Their chances.

So their bodies were able to contain the opposite's soul.

**The Realm of the Dark Elves**

Harry groaned, raising one hand over his head.

His first thought was that he had failed – the entire point of killing himself was so that he wouldn't feel this terrible pain anymore. And yet his head was throbbing! The pain was so intense he couldn't see clearly. Even the bed felt horribly uncomfortable, like he was sleeping on rocks.

Wait. Rocks?

Harry lay very still for a moment, willing his magic to soften the pain in his head in order to see clearly. He was...in a cave.

What?

He stumbled to his feet. This couldn't possibly be the afterlife. Where were his parents? The warm light, the lack of pain? Why was he still alive? _Should have gotten a thicker rope, _he thought dryly. It should have occurred to him that any rope that had been used by Dudley wouldn't be as strong as it used to be.

More likely, he had just knocked himself out, and dear Uncle Vernon took that as an excuse to dump his body out in the middle of nowhere because 'he looked dead!'. _At least I didn't have to dig out of my grave, Kill Bill style, _Harry thought.

Then he looked down at his hands.

His pale, _armoured _hands.

Harry stared in shock. He looked different. He _felt _different. There weren't any mirrors in the cave, but he didn't need one to realize that his body had changed dramatically.

_What the hell!? _

Harry ran his fingers through his hair – which was now longer and utterly smooth. Panic seeping into his bones, he walked over to the outside of the cave and stared.

Little Whining was gone. There was nothing but black sand as far as he could see. There were no houses, no roads and no signs of life.

Harry was utterly struck silent for several minutes. But oddly, the first thing he said when he recovered his voice was not a scream of panic, but a strangely sedated, "It would happen to me, wouldn't it?"

**At the Same Time – Britian, Surrey area**

Loki woke quickly.

His first instinct was disappointment and a deep sense of despair. His attempt hadn't worked. However, the circumstances he found himself in quickly distracted him from his loss of sanity and self-identity.

He was lying on a rickety cott in a tiny room. Getting to his feet, he stepped over to the mirror and stared at his reflection.

He was young again...and he looked nothing like himself. Well, perhaps not _nothing –_ superficially, the body was similar, but he had become lanky and underfed. He looked more like a dirty, lost peasant boy than anything else. There was a bizzare lightning shaped scar on his forehead.

A moment of reflection caused more alarm. While the despair was ever present, he couldn't quite remember _what _had driven him to madness. In fact...many of his recent memories had become blurred and indistinct, as if they were slowly being erased.

Loki was brought from his thoughts by a pounding on the door.

"BOY! GET UP!"

The young prince turned around to see the door swing open, revealing a morbidly obese individual with squinty eyes and more fat then Volstagg, something he hadn't quite believed possible. Before the man even addressed him directly, Loki felt a sharp stab of hatred towards him.

"WHAT PART OF 'PREPARE BREAKFAST' DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?" The man roared, spit flying from his mouth.

"All of it," Loki responded coolly, brushing off his dirty, oversized shirt. The first order of business, he thought absently, would be to find something presentable to wear. After finding out what had happened to him, of course.

The man's eyes bulged out. "WHY YOU LITTLE FREAK! I TAKE YOU IN, LET YOU GO TO YOUR FREAKISH SCHOOL, AND THAT'S WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY TO ME?"

Normally, Loki possessed far greater control over his temper then his 'brother'. However, a fall of the bridge at the end of the most traumatic months of his life made him...irritable. Besides, the man was just begging for it.

With a flick of his wrist, the man was flung backwards into the wall, causing a picture frame to fall down on his head and shatter.

_Interesting, _Loki thought as the man started sputtering something about 'getting kicked out of school'. _I seem to have wandered into someone else's life. ...Interesting._

**End Chapter**

**Next time, Harry manages to walk face first into trouble (as per usual) when he stumbles across some Dark Elves. Meanwhile, Loki terrorizes the Dursleys with wandless magic while familiarizing himself with Harry's history in preparation for the Quidditch World Cup.**

**Read and Review please!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Echoes of a Soul**

**Wanda: I do not own Harry Potter or the Avengers.**

**Chapter 2: Learning**

After some contemplation, Loki eventually decided to familiarize himself with this 'Harry Potter's life. At least until such time as he could reclaim his original body, since evidently his attempt at death had failed.

To that end, he went through the room and dug into the fairly large suitcase that seemed to contain the entirety of the boy's possessions, something that displeased him greatly. Digging out an impressive pile of letters, Loki sat down and went to work reading.

The boy was a wizard – though for some reason he was still restricted to using a wand. Loki snorted. Such things were meant to be training wheels, not crutches.

He had two friends; the intelligent and driven Hermione and the blundering but good matured Ronald. Ron was the youngest son in a family of six, including a pair of pranksters named Fred and George and a girl named Ginny – there were some letters from her too, but Loki could practically sense the girl's uncertainty as she wrote them. They were quite short.

He had a godfather named Sirius Black. An escaped convict who had been wrongly imprisoned. (Loki resisted the urge to growl at this. The chance of this being a cosmic joke on him was looking more and more likely.) Another acquaintance of his was a werewolf named Remus Lupin.

The Headmaster of the school was named Albus Dumbledore, and he took quite frankly an alarming interest in Harry. Loki was frankly awestruck at how eagerly Harry, through his memoirs, absorbed the man's false kindness and manipulation. Was the boy really that naive?

Then there was the scar. Loki had been aware of the magic surrounding him, but the exact nature had to be explained by the text. A love shield, given by the death of his mother at the hands of a dark wizard.

For a moment, he thought of Frigga. Angrily he pushed his last memory of her away and focused on his current situation.

The conversations between Harry's friends and contemporaries seemed to imply that this sorcerer, Voldemort, could and would return in the future.

What an utter bother.

Returning the last of the letters, Loki turned his attention to the journals Harry had kept as a child.

So, the man he had encountered wasn't merely a whale with his so called brother's vocals. He had struck and injured Harry for petty or non existent slights, because the boy's mere presence was considered an annoyance and a chore.

The revelation was quite neatly timed with a pounding on the door. Rolling his eyes, Loki gestured with one hand, causing the door to swing open on its own. The man was back, but the use of magic caused him to squeak and turn white.

"Y—You can't use magic here, freak! They'll kick out of your freak school!" The man bellowed.

"If they know I'm using it," Loki responded in a bored tone. "I did a little homework and realized the only tracking charm was on my wand. Thus, using magic without it shall bring me no punishment."

Snapping the book shut, he stood up and regarded the man contemptuously. "Allow me to make one thing clear, mortal. Raise a hand against me again, and you will loose it. I could pay you back ten times in retribution for what you've made me suffer through the years, but I am willing to be merciful...upon a few conditions."

"Y-y-y-you little – this is MY HOUSE!"

Loki made the door slam behind them. Vernon Dursley jumped up and whimpered like a child.

"Does that really matter?" He inquired coldly. "You have the deed to the house...I have power beyond what your pathetic brain could comprehend. Tell me, who truly rules the house?"

Gesturing to his surroundings, he said, "I will not be working as your servant this summer. Split the chores between yourself and your spawn. Of course, even if this place was a pigsty I doubt you would notice the difference."

"I will take whatever food I deem necessary for myself at mealtimes. I will not eat with you, nor will I sully myself with your ignorant presence."

Loki snapped his fingers, and Harry's bags repacked themselves. It served both for his habit of keeping appearances and to intimidate the man in front of him.

"You will not see much of me...unless you or your son provoke me. Then I will not hold back."

With that, Loki excused himself and walked past the sputtering fool. The woman of the house shouted at him to get back there and clean the kitchen, but she was _dissuaded _by the suddenly animated appliances.

"Fools," Loki muttered as he exited the house.

-**Echoes of the Soul-**

"Evening, Harry."

Loki had taken a look around the surrounding area. It was all painfully similar to the Dursley house and virtually deserted. Some of Dudley's friends had attempted to harass him, but it was short lived. The young prince's response was to place a curse of them that made believe they were surrounded by monsters, causing them to flee in fear.

Currently, he was facing a golden-haired girl sitting on the sidewalk. Harry's memoirs mentioned her – this must be Carrie Richter.

Mentions of her became more fleeting after the boy had started going to Hogwarts, but they had been each other's sole allies in the early years. Carrie was not loved in this neighbourhood; children called her 'demon' behind her back while adults predicted that she would become a criminal when she grew older.

"Carrie," Loki acknowledged, gazing skyward. The setting sun painted the clouds a bloody red.

"Long day?" Carrie asked, eyes narrowing.

"Yes and no." Loki responded, turning his attention to her. The girl stood up, revealing that she was about his height and possessing similarly shabby clothes. However, her dark blue eyes burned with a strength that was at odds with this battered appearance. "And you?"

Undoubtedly she would be suspicious at first, but it would help to feel out how Harry would respond and speak with those he considered friends.

Carrie let out a short laugh. "It's been hell, but you already knew that." She crossed her arms. "I'm very annoyed with you right now."

"Why's that? I apologize if it seems I have forgotten you recently...I simply found myself per-occupied."

Carrie waved a hand impatiently. "Why didn't you tell me you were a wizard?" She demanded. "What do you think would be worse for me? Knowing that we couldn't communicate as much because you're going to some wizard school or leaving me to believe that my only friend suddenly isn't speaking to me at all anymore!?"

Ah. Hermione's letters were often filled with complaints about how the wizards and witches of Midgard were determined to hide themselves away – the children were strictly forbidden from exposing their powers to those without.

Loki bowed slightly to the girl. "Forgive me, Carrie. I was forbidden from speaking of magic to mundane folk, and my 'family' was not keen on revealing there was a sorcerer in their family."

Carrie relaxed just a bit at that. "I see. Fine, I can accept that." She eyed him critically. "Does everyone at your new school speak this formally?"

"Well, the spells are all in Latin." Loki responded mildly, resisting again the urge to roll his eyes. Why did these people insist on limiting their growth?

Carrie folded her arms across her chest. "That place is changing you, Harry." She said. "Every time you come back here, you seem a little more worn then before. Little parts of you that I remember have been broken away." Her eyes narrowed. "Until now, I would have thought the place was killing you."

Loki regarded her intently at this remark. Harry made fleeting mention of his reactions to what he experienced, even in his own writing.

"It can be difficult at times."

"Difficult!? It's like your an entirely different person sometimes."

The young prince resisted the urge to chuckle. If only she knew how right she was. "Perhaps you're right." He smiled disarmingly at her before leaning back against the front gate of her house. "But if the person I used to be was my oafish cousin's punching bag, perhaps that is not entirely a bad thing."

Carrie blinked and stepped over to his side. For a moment, a wistful look flashed across her face. "Maybe you're right." After a moment, she gave him a mild shove. "But you owe me a trip to this magic world of yours now."

"I do?" Damn it all. The last thing he wanted right now was more variables to concern himself with while he navigated this new world.

"Yes. If you don't, I'm stowing away in your trunk. I've missed my only real friend for quite a while now, and it isn't as if I've got a whole lot of incentive to stick around."

She gave him a look that reminded him strikingly of another girl he had known long ago – pure, stubborn courage. Seeing that again after many years, combined with his apathy following his attempted suicide, caused him to nod. "Very well."

**\- With Harry-**

_Why me? Why does it _always _have to be me!? _

Those were the thoughts going through the head of Harry James Potter, currently in the body of Loki Odinson, having buried himself under the stone floor in an alien planet.

Why? Disturbing, insect-like monsters with guns and spears were patrolling the entire area, looking for him. Contrary to what Severus Snape might say, Harry was no fool, so he had hidden himself away.

"...cannot have gotten far." Harry winced when one of the monsters above him started speaking.

"Lord Thanos demands his prize, fool, and how do you intend to get it without him?"

He could only get scattered bits and pieces of conversation, and none of it made any sense to him. Thanos? Infinity Gauntlet? Asgard? Kree? What the hell? What was this made up language and what did it have to do with what had just happened to him?

All Harry knew was that he had to get out of here. But he didn't have a wand nor any way of getting in contact with his friends – he didn't even know where he was.

How was he going to get out of this one?

**End Chapter**

**Before you all freak out about Carrie, she serves an important function in the story but she is NOT a fixer sue, if you give me some time her place in this story should become clear. I haven't decided on romance but there is none yet, so you don't have to worry about that - the connection between Loki and Harry will be what's most important in this installment. Though that's not to say romance may not become involved. Besides, Carrie is hardly the only person outside of the usual spectrum who's going to be involved with this story. **

**Read and Review please!**


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